The Tale of Tal A Gnome Bard Backstory
by Fianchetto
Summary: A kindhearted and passionate gnome is swept away by his convictions to another, far different, world.


The Tale of Tal

In the rolling savannahs and forest glades of a world very far away from the harsh, sunbaked plains of the desert planet Athas, there came to be a people called the gnomes. The gnomes of this world were a very old race, a race which had come into being almost at the dawn of the land's existence. Unlike other races, who were a creation of the gods, gnomes were birthed right out of the land itself and as such were tied deeply to its essence. In particular, the magical gift of music was the gnomes' most singular mark, perhaps the very reason they were birthed. The land understood their presence as the sentient extension of its own life-force, a world yearning to express itself audibly. In turn, the gnomes cared for the land and told its secrets through songs, which were shrouded in their own deep affinity for the arcane. The gnomes and the land were not two things, but two parts of one thing. Music and the arcane were not two things, but two parts of one thing. In each case, the two parts constantly gave birth to and replenished each other. This was The Truth.

Tal was born into a clan of these gnomes, a clan which was poor in might but not in spirit, and nomadic in practice but not in their principles. Childhood and young adulthood among the group was effectively an exercise in survival, for the gnomish peoples had many evil enemies. The gnome parents encouraged their children to play games of stealth and trickery (in which the last gnome child to be discovered was often the winner) because they knew that learning to remain hidden was necessary to avoid being noticed and captured by the surrounding races. All gnome children became quite adept at these games, but no one for many generations was quite the natural that Tal himself proved to be. Tal's parents also taught him the values of kindheartedness and compassion, values they believed embodied the true music of the world. When used without these values, his parents taught, magic was useless, perverted, and vulgar, because it had forgotten its relationship to the The Truth.

When Tal came of age (thirty), his parents presented him with a precious gift, a magical instrument of wood and wind. The instrument was a legendary piece in the clan's history; it had been passed down for generations as an expression of talent and true arcane fellowship. However, they warned him not to use its power until he had communed for years with it and gained an understanding of what it could do. Tal agreed, but some in the clan were anxious that Tal was not ready, and that the realities of their world would likely push him to temptation.

One day soon after, Tal was walking the woods, making music and communing with the flow of the arcane. Suddenly, he saw in passing a strange four-legged creature he had never seen before being mistreated by a group of humans, being made to walk in chains and pull a wooden cart. This was a relationship the gnome did not understand, but it was one that struck him as evil. As he watched the humans dominate the animal, Tal's compassion gripped him with painful empathy and a desire to help the creature. At first, he remembered the ways of his clan; not to interfere - gnomes kept to the wisdom of illusions and stealth, surviving even the greatest of wars by choosing not to be seen. But Tal truly detested slavery. He saw it as an evil distortion of The Truth, the relationship all beings should have with each other. Forgetting his parents' warning, he used his arcane instrument as a musical conduit through which he wished to punish the humans. When he began to play, however, the instrument sang, and its power cast wildly and deeply in the arcane. Tal in his inexperience could not control the flow or direction of the spell, and instead of negatively affecting the humans, the song-spell opened a deep magical doorway which pulled Tal in before closing.

For what seemed like years, Tal spent a torturous, silent existence floating in nothingness. The torture of being separated from the musical world of his people pulled greatly on the gnome's sanity, for indeed, no music or sound was heard, and no direction or thoughts could take form. When the other side of the dimensional gateway finally opened, Tal was thrust through in a spectacular flash into a world totally alien to him. He materialized many feet off the ground in the middle of what looked to be a spacious woodland amphitheater, right when a great halfling ceremony was being held. He literally appeared out of nowhere to the astonished onlookers, and with the gateway gone; gravity took over. The poor gnome plummeted down, screaming in helplessness and shrieking with terror, and no spells he sang out to save him had any effect. Just before he hit the earth, Tal's concentration found him - somewhat. He attempted to create a bed of leaves, but instead produced a small wooden stool directly under him on the ground, which he promptly fell on, crushing it to pieces and knocking himself unconscious. Tal was thus left at the mercy of the forest halflings.

As they met to decide the strange creature's fate, the wisest of the halflings decided that he be left to wake up. Though they did not at all want such a bizarre outsider to be allowed to live, the halfling leaders were even less comforted by what fearsome and unforeseen consequences would befall them all if they murdered this mysterious creature from the beyond!

And so Tal was brought to what he came to know as the world of Athas. It was not the same place he had lived in, in fact it seemed fundamentally different, as if the land was silent and even hostile towards the living races. In time the halflings came to respect Tal and learn from him, as he did them, though some feared and often quaked with trepidation regarding his use of the arcane. He found that, like his creation of the small stool, he could only use his instrument to very minimal effect in this world, as he was no longer in the land that he and its power were tied to. He would attempt to weave a great song-spell only to realize that the instrument would only produce small effects in this world. Perhaps, Tal decided, he must familiarize himself and his instrument with this new place, in order to bond with it. So for the next fifty years, Tal traveled through the forest and beyond, braving the harsh conditions of Athas. He lived amongst primal and arcane societies of many races, seeking to understand their histories. He was much beloved in each place he went, because his songs and tales provoked wonder and admiration regarding each culture's legacy. Thus, Tal developed a penchant for Athasian history, and through it, a fondness for lost Athasian items and artifacts. It was through items such as these that Tal learned even richer details of much of what was lost even to the native peoples of Athas, and anything which inspired new ballads rejuvenated him with purpose. Tal found many of the Athasians he met to be illiterates who only possessed oral histories to speak of, but this only endeared him more to the people, in that he valued oral histories as a performer.

In time, his travels taught him social skills; diplomacy, a convincing bluff, and person-to-person insight, things which a gnome upbringing had not equipped him with. Tal's reputation eventually attracted the attention of the Veiled Alliance, an organization dedicated to stopping defiling magic, with whom he became very sympathetic. After learning of the horrible relationship that the aching land of Athas had with its people and their careless use of defiling magic, he was filled with grief and shame, for the act of defiling reminded Tal of his own act of shortsighted carelessness that had cost him his homeland forever. He thus joined the Veiled Alliance and swore, in his heart and on his very essence to remember and honor the life that once was and could never be again. He swore, on The Truth itself, never - NEVER, no matter the cost, to defile the land which had become his new home


End file.
